


Predestiny and Power Outlets

by RainyForecast



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU: Human, Airports, Authorial Catharsis re: Airports, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Derek Is Secretly A Romantic Dork, Fluff, I'm Very Sorry To Residents Of The UK, Implied Alive Hale Family, M/M, Stiles is a force of nature, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4444898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/RainyForecast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He crouches down and shakes the man's shoulder, not exactly gently. The man jolts awake and yanks his beanie up to reveal an unnervingly handsome face. His piercing hazel eyes are befuddled as he stares at Stiles. Stiles rocks back a little in reaction to all the pretty (who could blame him?) but he has more important things to worry about. He scrapes his hands through his hair, probably making himself look even more unhinged. </p><p>'Look man, I can see you've got your cozy little nap corner over here, but I really, really need to text my dad before he assumes I've been stabbed in a London back alley so can I please use the outlet for just a couple minutes?' "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predestiny and Power Outlets

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that there are not currently any flights to the U.S. from London Gatwick Airport, apologies. 
> 
> Also UK residents, forgive me. This fic makes more sense from an authorial standpoint if I tell you that I wrote most of it in a frustrated fit on my phone while in line at an airport gate delay. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, to be fair, but I'd had a semi-traumatic experience at Gatwick a few weeks prior and was still salty about it. 
> 
> Beta'd by fatal_mystique, all errors left are entirely my fault.

Stiles has just about had it. Foreign airports are harrowing at the best of times, but London Gatwick has got to be the worst airport ever conceived in the dark heart of a miserable and possibly drunk architect. After a confusing maze of shuttles, escalators, and security he is finally, finally at his gate. His flight to LAX leaves in an hour, and all he wants to do is  find a wall outlet and charge his damn phone so he can text his dad. Of course he had to fall asleep before plugging it in last night, resulting in accidentally sleeping too late, a frantic dive into the London Underground during rush hour, and an increasingly sour mood. Gatwick Airport, he decides, can go fuck itself with a cactus. Especially regarding the fact that when he looks around the gate area, there appear to be zero power outlets to be had.

Exasperated, Stiles hunts around. Eventually, he spots one, tucked away in an inconvenient corner. But of course, it's in use. There's a guy camping out there, asleep, Arsenal beanie pulled over his face. He's got an iPad charging in the outlet. Stiles huffs out a sigh of annoyance and heads over.

"Excuse me?" The man doesn't move. Stiles tries again, louder. "Hey! Dude, wake up."

The man still doesn't stir. That's, it, Stiles is done. Done with this morning, done with this airport, done with this asshole. He crouches down and shakes the man's shoulder, not exactly gently. The man jolts awake and yanks the beanie up to reveal an unnervingly handsome face. His piercing hazel eyes are befuddled as he stares at Stiles. Stiles rocks back a little in reaction to all the pretty (who could blame him?) but he has more important things to worry about. He scrapes his hands through his hair, probably making himself look even more unhinged.

"Look man, I can see you've got your cozy little nap corner over here, but I really, really need to text my dad before he assumes I've been stabbed in a London back alley so can I please use the outlet for just a couple minutes?" The man blinks and continues staring at Stiles. Does he not speak English? "Well?" Stiles asks again, jabbing his finger at the outlet to indicate what he wants.

"Uh, sure," the man finally responds, before moving aside and unplugging his iPad. Stiles can't scrabble his charger and phone out of his bag fast enough. He mutters under his breath at it, most likely adding to his insane demeanor.

"C'mon Frankie, load, baby, come oonn..."

"Your phone's name is Frankie?" The accent is American, and it's the pretty outlet hog, who is still staring at him.

Stiles figures his chance at a good impression is completely shot anyway, so he doesn't get embarrassed but just gives the man a level stare.

"Yeah, so?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean-"

Whatever the man was going to say is interrupted by the chime of Stiles' phone "AHA!" Stiles cries, and Pretty Outlet Hog jumps a little.

Stiles has no time to apologize, however, before a rapid series of bleeps indicate that he has missed text after missed text from his dad, culminating in a terse "Stiles, check in or I'm calling the police there. Now." The text is timestamped from 20 minutes ago.

"SHIT shit shit shit shit-" Stiles can't dial fast enough.

"STILES-" his dad shouts immediately upon answering. Stiles grimaces in response.

"Sorry dad I was- no, I'm totally fine. Overslept and my phone was dead. No-no-yeah, sorry dad. Yeah, I know it was irresponsible. Uh huh. Yeah. Please tell me you did not actually call the police. Ok, good. Ok. I'm at the airport and it's all good. Uh huh. What about you though? The hell are you doing up so late? Yeah, whatever. You need to stop taking night shifts, ok? And eat something green. I'll call Myrna and check with her to find out if you did, see if I will. You know what Doctor Nguyen said. Uh huh. Yeah. I know. Love you too. See you in 72 hours, dad."

Stiles hangs up, and finally lets the tension leave his body as he slumps, letting his head fall back against the wall. "I'm very proud of myself" he rambles to Pretty Outlet Hog. “I made it to the airport on time against all odds and I just averted an international incident." He flops his head over to see what POH's face is doing. POH is _still_ staring at him, looking a little stupefied now. Stiles has that effect on people sometimes.

"An international incident?" POH asks, blinking his ridiculous (Hazel? Green? Gold?) eyes.

"Uh, yeah. My dad's in law enforcement; he gets intense about this kind of thing."

"Right." POH nods a little, and then they sit there for a moment in a little eddy of awkward silence as the hubbub of the airport swirls around them.

"Oh here. You can plug your thing back in." Stiles moves to unplug his phone but POH stops him.

"No, don't. My iPad's done. You take the outlet." His lips quirk up in a faint smile. "Don't want another international incident."

"Yeah, well." Stiles doesn't know the guy enough to know if he's being made fun of or not.

"My family is kind of like that too. Hands on. My sisters are the worst. They like to think they know more about my love life than I do." Stiles snorts at this, amused, and POH smiles now, a full on smile. It just may kill Stiles. No one has the right to be this attractive. No one.

"Derek Hale." The man says, and holds out his hand to shake.

"Sti-" just then, an overhead announcement blares.

"Will passengers Derek Hale and Zz, ah, Zzc, Schzpan? Stilinski on flight 745 to LAX please report to gate A7. Your flight is ready to depart." Derek’s face falls at this for some reason, while _Szczepan_ Stilinski takes a split second to grimace at the butchering of his name.

"Shit. That's my flight.” Stiles clambers to his feet, only to see that Derek has stood up as well. “Wait, it's yours too?"

Derek's face, inexplicably, is now alight in a wide, goofy looking smile. Stiles feels personally victimized by it.

"Come on,” Derek says. "We better run." He jogs off, turning around to check if Stiles is following him, and Stiles is really glad he manfully resisted the urge to check out Derek's ass. He hurries after, wondering how his luck has changed this quickly.

***

Apparently the universe has decided the scales need even more balancing, because while Derek is seated five rows ahead of Stiles, a woman next to Derek asks Stiles if he wouldn't mind swapping so she can sit next to her elderly mother. Stiles isn't sure how Derek feels about a 10 hour flight next to him, so he approaches row 31 with trepidation, hugging his backpack to his chest. This is either going to be very awkward or very awesome.

Awesome, the universe must decide, because Derek's face fucking _lights up_ when he sees Stiles.

“Um, mind if I sit here? The lady in 31A wanted to sit by her mom, or something?”

Stiles barely gets the words out before Derek is up out of his seat, helping him put his bag in the overhead bin with an eager “Sure, no problem." What even is Stiles’ life.

***

Much later, the cabin lights are dim, and most of the passengers are asleep. Stiles and Derek are still talking in low voices, their words gone slow and heavy, faces close together in the dark. They passed the slightly nervous small talk stage somewhere over the mid Atlantic. It turns out that not only are they both from NorCal, they are literally from the same town. Stiles feels like it's fate. He's pretty sure Derek feels the same way. He's already declared that there's no way Stiles is catching a Greyhound bus in LA, that he's driving back to Beacon Hills with Derek and his sister Laura when she picks Derek up from the airport. Stiles had laughed self-deprecatingly at that, telling Derek he was sure to be sick of Stiles after the long flight.

"No." Derek had said, voice quiet and serious. "Pretty sure I won’t be."

Stiles hadn't been able to do anything in response to that kind of declaration but turn all kinds of red. That, and start thinking about what he wants to name the dog they get together for their first wedding anniversary.

***

Derek has never met anyone like Stiles before. He feels surreal, like he fell asleep in the airport to one reality and woke up to another. He thinks it might be overly sentimental and not a little egotistical to draw Sleeping Beauty connotations, but there it is. He's not certain he's ever going to forget what it was like--getting shaken awake and opening his eyes to Stiles leaning over him. Wide, whiskey-colored eyes behind heavy black frames. A nervous torrent of words. Tousled, ridiculously sexy bedhead that just got worse as Stiles tugged at it. Nothing probably would have come of the encounter if Stiles had merely been talkative and beautiful, though. But then, the endearing eccentricity of him-the affection he'd used when nagging his father about his health. Derek had been completely fascinated; he'd felt like a planet getting pulled into orbit around a painfully bright sun. He'd been devastated at the flight announcement, thought he'd never see Stiles again, would always have to sort of wonder, what if. He'd even had a microsecond of "No, I can't do this, fuck the flight" when wonder of wonders, it was Stiles' flight too.

Derek isn't good with relationships, or people in general for that matter. He was too intense, people said, too attached. And at the same time, he "couldn't communicate for shit" as Jennifer had told him. But if this wasn't fate, he didn't know what was.

It was late. They were seven hours into the flight. Stiles had gotten progressively sleepier, and now to Derek's very well-contained glee had fallen asleep on Derek's shoulder. He smelled like sweat and cheap hostel shampoo and Derek wanted him to stay tucked into his side like this forever. The thought made him hear a faint echo of Kate's cruel "You're such a fucking sap, Derek" but he mentally flipped her off and decided that if this thing (he was so sure it was A Thing) between them went anywhere, he was done pretending to be somebody he wasn't. Stiles would either like Derek as he was (moody, introverted, nerdy about history, and easily besotted) or he wouldn't. That was it.

Resolution made, he tipped his head until his cheek rested on top of Stiles' head, then let his own eyes flutter closed too.

**Author's Note:**

> It's my headcanon that Derek had just finished a semester abroad at Oxford and that Stiles was backpacking around Europe.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm creaturesofnarrative on Tumblr, and you are a precious cinnamon roll. Thanks for reading.


End file.
